Word up: Instagram ignites trend for self-help slogan dressing

Brands to embrace the word this season include pop-art inspired Zoe Karrsen

If you've spent any time pondering which filter - lark vs valencia - best shows off your avocado on toast or chortled heartily at one of the Fat Jewish's snaps of a dog in a Happy Meal hat, you'll know that generation Instagram has a lot to answer for.

A confab of hashtagging maniacs, we pay more attention to our feeds than we do our own mothers and endure blind panic if the "No internet connection" banner winks snidely at us from the top of our phone screen.

Collective addiction in mind, it's no surprise that our hunger for visual stimulation has spilled out from our tech and onto our clothes. Notably, with self-help style - a phenomenon that takes its lead from the many inspirational quotes and motivational mantras that litter our Instagram accounts.

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Zoe Karssen

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Zoe Karssen

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House of Holland

The current default setting of a number of emerging labels which have built entire customer bases on clothes printed with self-help slogans, the motivational market is big news. It's inspirational, in fact.

Leaders of the charge include London-based French-inspired Être Cécile - a label which has imbued heavy logos with a chic edge - and counts its "The future is ours" sweater among its most popular at the moment and tongue and cheek label Lazy Oaf: its "Super" T-shirt is among our favourites.

Other brands to embrace the word this season include pop-art inspired Zoe Karrsen, whose latest collection includes sweaters and jackets boasting the phrases "Eau yeah" and "Heaven can wait". The Dutch designer also offers a swimsuit emblazoned with the words "Wish you were here".

Of course, as Yasmin Sewell, founder of Être Cécile, points out, this trend is no 21st-century phenomenon. "It's a great example of fashion being cyclical," she says. "Slogan tees were big in the Sixties, the Eighties ... now everyone's wearing them again."

But what's the attraction? Is the self-help slogan merely a by-product of a generation of habitual oversharers who, no longer content with posting our every emotion and thought on our Facebook pages, now need to wear our hearts on our sweaters too?

But the designer, who has an extensive background in fashion and retail consultancy, also puts the rise of this trend for motivational motifs down to the fact that we're all hungry for a little light relief. "I think even subconsciously people are drawn to wearing them amid a lot of the troubling chaos and conflict that's going on around us at the moment," she says.

It's not all spiritual stuff, though - there's a wicked sense of humour to be found within this trend too.

Take, for example, the slogan prints touted by Henry Holland, who is to this movement what chips are to cheese.

Holland cites the "Instagramisation of fashion" and the fact that fashion fans have adapted the notions of self-help they see on their social feeds into their wardrobes but is less convinced by the sickly sweet side to this trend. To this end, his newly launched menswear line, a collaboration with Martin Parr, includes T-shirts and sweats printed with the phrase "Your banter is bullshit" and "Is your hairdo tolerated?". Why? "Personally I prefer something a bit more badass written on my clothes than 'You go, girl!'" Holland says.